Recommended: The Particle at the End of the Universe

The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New Worldby Sean Carroll Dutton, 2012 ((&dollar;27.95))

For those wishing to understand the nitty-gritty of how physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider found the new entity-that-may-be-the-Higgs-boson, here is a timely account from physicist and author Carroll. Starting with the dramatic July 4, 2012, announcement of the new particle, then going briefly back in time to the Greek philosophers—the first to suggest that all matter was composed of tiny, elemental pieces—he reconstructs the global hunt for the particle that gives all others their mass, stopping to explain basic physics along the way.